Milwaukee residents react to string of shootings

Efforts focus on specific north side neighborhoods

Dennis Alston looks over at Sherman Park from a home where he is doing work. Alston has lived in the neighborhood for years and frequently works in the area as well. He has seen an increase in police presence but says the police can't do it by themselves. He believes that parents must be more involved and held more accountable for their children's actions. Credit: Kristyna Wentz-Graff

A week after police said they would roughly double the number of officers in the area of W. Vliet St. to W. Keefe Ave., and N. 20th St. west to N. 50th St., residents there have mixed opinions on whether violence is worse this year than past years and what effect more officers on the streets will have.

Davis said he has noticed more police officers in squads and bikes in the last week. He's happy to see them.

"I know it helps," he said as he washed his wife's car in the driveway one morning last week.

"But I know it won't continue, and then (criminals) are right back to the same old game," Davis added.

A mile south from Davis, Heather Rubio-Cockroft was walking her 2-year-old dog, Jedi, in Sherman Park. Rubio-Cockroft, a nurse at Froedert Hospital in Wauwatosa, said she's accustomed to hearing commotion in the neighborhood. She compared it to how she grew used to hearing a medical helicopter at work and now doesn't notice the whirring.

"I think you get used to it," she said. "It's hard to say if it's worse this year."

Jamaal Smith was dropping his son off at the Boys and Girls Club in Sherman Park. He said the level of violence has been about the same as previous years.

"Yes, in the short term there's been a major increase," he said. "But it's nothing like it was 2004 or 2005."

Smith, who works as a Boys and Girls Club manager at Madison High School, said the historic tension between the African-American community and police cannot be ignored when the department plans to put more officers on the streets.

He said a boost in police presence can create a Catch-22. More cops will deter crime, but such a visible force can induce fear in neighborhoods, he said.

"People get nervous and think 'Is our neighborhood starting to swing toward being a bad neighborhood?' and that increases fear," Smith said.

Like Smith, most residents said the violence this summer doesn't seem as bad as prior years.

Data from police and the Homicide Review Commission note little year-to-date differences in non-fatal shooting victims. From Jan. 1 through Aug. 15, 322 people have been wounded by gunfire — 34% of those shootings occurred in Police District 5 — compared with 321 in the same time last year.

Overall, in the past seven years, the number of non-fatal shooting victims peaked at 621 in 2006 and dipped to 400 in 2010.

The first weekend in August had a higher number of non-fatal shooting victims compared with the same weekend in 2012. June and July had a 19% increase in non-fatal shootings compared with the same two months in 2012.

However, there has been a nearly 10% increase in homicides so far in 2013 (56) compared to last year (51). Police have cleared 68% of the 2013 cases. They've also cleared an additional four homicides from last year.

In its 2012 annual report to the FBI, the department reported a 9.4% increase in violent crime compared with the year before, the first increase since 2008.

"It's been better than usual," said Joseph Poklasny, who was walking his dog Daisy on W. Hope Ave. near N. 50th St., less than a block from where a 25-year-old man was shot to death Aug. 2.

Poklasny, who grew up in the area and returned when he retired from the U.S. Air Force, said he's noticed an uptick in police officers in the neighborhood. He's more concerned about speeding drivers who ignore the posted 25-mph signs on Hope Ave. than shooters.

"Every neighborhood will have its problems. You can't keep moving away," he said.

Lovenia Hampton often sits on her porch, but on a recent morning she and her grandson, Semaj Sells, 4, took a walk on N. 37th St. near W. Burleigh Ave. — close to where Hampton lives and hears gunshots.